The Progress

Housed in a former movie theater from 1911, the design approach was part revealing the original construction and part intervention. Park, open, vibrant, and public. The space is conceived as a progression of urban garden spaces: from the green house, to the field park and street, to the narrow paths of the dining mezzanines that are meant to evoke the steep pedestrian steps between some blocks in San Francisco. Circulation meanders through the space to the very open kitchen. The materials are basic and tactile, with the simplicity of early California vernacular building. The muted, warm palette of bronze, steel, plaster and raw locally milled cypress, contrasts with the existing vaulted ceiling and wooden lathe artifact of the original theater space. The repetitive curvature of the detailing is meant to be engaged by touch.

State Bird Provisions

Culinary improvisation, carts, pegboard. We were brought in to develop a lighting and modular seating strategy for the existing restaurant, building on the conceptual framework of the original design as a midcentury workshop. Seriality, economy of sections, activated through color, manufactured materials. The old tables were used to make the new built-in seating, as we increased the seating capacity and functionality, and unified the identity of state bird. Leah Rosenberg provided pegboard installation, paintings. All metal work executed by WP, in a basement garage.

Ramen Shop

We weren’t trying to make a Japanese design as much as we were making a design that Japanese friends would appreciate. Noguchi by way of JB Blunk, Coastal northern California barns, the weathering sea, inside/outside/inside. This was a very collaborative process, working with Perish Trust, the clients and many talented friends to conceive of and build out the space, the project was the embodiment of community and cooperation.

Glena's

Obispo

There is a benevolent dictatorship on a small Caribbean archipelago. No, not that one. All the rum has been hoarded in an underground bunker, cracks are beginning to show, the people may rise up, why should we toil in your copper mine. But we are well fed, and tipsy. Tomorrow.

KronnerBurger

Think of it as a bistro sandwiched in between two slices of marble, with a side of pink onyx. Light, open, 70’s french riviera, retired dairy cows. We restored the original plaster ceiling and windows of this 1904 former Key System rail station to it’s original envelope from historical documentation of the station. What a strange beautiful building for a savant of the fryolated arts to toil in.

Guerrero

The italianate home of a wall paper importer built in 1883, was reconverted from a four unit building to a single dwelling, opening much of the home back up and reprogramming many of the spaces. View, contour, body, duration were the ideas for new pattern relationships in the tile work of the bathrooms, picking up graphically where the wallpaper left off.

Ramen Shop Annex

The ramen shop needed more space for offices, noodle production and prep, storage, and another bar. The spatial strategy embraces the compression of space and square footage of the functional requirements. The idea was to carve the interior out of the new space, part abandoned mine, excavating the improvised sculptural elements left behind in the invented subterranean studio of ramen shop patron saint JB Blunk. Wood detailing conceived and executed by Ido Yoshimoto.

The Workshop

A programmatically flexible space, the workshop needed to function as an event hall, a lecture space, a dining room, an art gallery, a living room. We approached the space with an intervention of modular furniture elements. Bronze box frames can be reoriented as a dining table, a coffee table, or a drink rail depending on the need. The bar can be broken apart and used for as a raw bar or drink well. The truss overhead is a frame work for a site specific installation by Jesse Schlesinger

Trick Dog

If trick dog were a room in the house it would be the garage. The room where you actually want to hang out, where you work on things with your hands, where you sit around with friends who aren’t working on things but who can’t help giving advice, where you start a shit band. And some tools.The design really came together in the buildout, we joined forces with the bon vivants and their old friends Nick Roberto and Colby Jacobsen to create something that couldn’t really be drawn. Scouring the flea markets for antiques. Salvaged cast iron and marble stairs from the Warfield Building were repurposed for different architectural details, and a litter of cast iron coin banks found a home.

Sandringham

The Williams and Wastell designed tudor revival house has been continuously occupied since the 1930’s. There are a number of changes that are being made to the house to bring it into the 21st century, while maintaining the integrity of the original architecture. We are adding an addition to the kitchen and removing some of the work that was done in the 80’s, in a effort to harmonize with the original spirit of the house. We are working as part of a team of architects, landscape architects, designers, and engineers to guide the project through permitting and construction.